GigaMedia will hold a conference call at 9:00 p.m. Taipei/Hong Kong Time on December 21, 2009, which is 8:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on
December 21, 2009 in the United States, to discuss the transaction and the company's financial results. Individual investors can listen to a
webcast of the call at ir.giga.net.tw ...[link update to be provided once available...]

Publicly traded online companies we have selected for monitoring the online gaming market:

The symbols in parenthesis, typically a stock trading symbol for the company, are used below to link into the best information sites we've found for tracking these companies.
Click here to contact us!!

2009 -- the end of Prohibition 2.0?

GObama confesses he enjoys a friendly game of poker!

Watch the YouTube.com videos here and then follow the link to the new White House Office of Public Liason and share your views on online poker and Prohibition 2.0. Do it now!!

...on the basis of the discussions to-date, PartyGaming expects any settlement with the DoJ to involve a payment by the Company of an amount that is significantly lower than that reported to be paid by Mr Dikshit in today’s Financial Times. In addition, the Company believes that any such settlement is unlikely to include a criminal plea on the part of the Company or any director.

The two-year battle between the online gambling industry and US prosecutors reached a significant milestone when Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of PartyGaming, on Tuesday agreed to plead guilty to a charge related to internet betting and pay the US authorities $300m.

...

Judge Jed Rakoff set his sentencing date for two years from Tuesday and could penalise him with up to two years in prison and a year of supervised release.

But people close to Mr Dikshit said they think a jail sentence is highly unlikely, adding that the two-year adjournment in his sentencing was intended to give sufficient time for him to demonstrate he was co-operating with the DoJ.

2009 Events

PartyGaming February 6, 2009 Update highlights:

Quote:

Continued competitive pressures, particularly in poker, where sites that continue to take bets from US customers are distorting the market, and a delay in the launch of the Group’s new loyalty scheme both affected player frequency. These factors contributed to a 14% decline in active player days year-on-year, although they were up 7% versus the previous quarter. Whilst gross revenue fell 7% quarter-on-quarter, the competitive pressures together with promotion costs associated with the relaunch of PartyPoker during the period meant that bonuses and other fair value adjustments to revenue increased to 27% of gross revenue overall, compared with 20% in the previous quarter and 21% in the fourth quarter of 2007. As a result, average yield per active player day was down 6% versus the prior year and down 21% versus the previous quarter.

GigaMedia 2008 Q4 and full year conference call transcript, from March 31st 2009, is available here.

Quote from Arthur's response to a question regarding US regulation:

The fiscal crisis in the United States will certainly be an impetus for the repeal of the prohibition act that was pasted a couple of years ago. It now looks like there will be two bills moving through Congress and the list of supporters is continuing to grow. At the same time there is also movement in California for a state bill to legalize poker in California. We believe that as the only United States written, born and bred software, the only Sarbane Oxley compliant, the only US corporate governance compliant firm that we will not only be the first in-line to receive a US license but also the first to receive actual US operating license. Natural this is an enormous opportunity for us and combined with sponsorship of the US World Series of Poker we believe represents the huge upside for our business.

Cryptologic Changes in 2008:

February 2008 Cryptologic switched CEOs. Brian Hadfield, a CRYP director took over from Javid Aziz.

December 4, Javid Aziz informs CRYP that he owns and holds options to buy 1,000,000 ordinary shares in Cryptologic. Javid asks for, among other things, updates on termination payments from WPT and WH for early contract terminations, the terms of poker business transitioin to Boss/GTECH, and more. PokerPulse has published the full letter on the Cryptologic page.

December 19, SunPoker.com and Omni Casino, part of the Peak Group Malta Ltd. start their move to PlayTech. More details on the Cryptologic page.

This year we plan to acquire, merge or form a strong strategic alliance with a major European sports book. Sports are an enormous segment of the online gaming and betting space. But until recently our view was that regulations were to restrictive for us to be involved. As a result we have been leaving a lot of money on the table. The good news is that last year we have seen several moves towards licensing and liberalization in certain of our target markets and we have concluded that now is a good time for us to enter.

At this point in time, we are not ready to announce any specific terms or any specific deal with respect to a deal with a sports book. We think that this is a, I can't emphasis how large and important a step this will be for us. It is a matter I am attending to personally and we are fortunate to have built a very attractive brand, to have a lot of momentum, to have very strong consumer response. And so we are enjoying a situation where we have some good possibilities, good opportunities, good choices for us. We are exploring those very carefully. I think it will be a while still before we are able to announce anything. But we are making good progress. With respect to the US market liberalization, this in some ways is anyone's guess as to exactly when the United States is repeals the prohibition and adopts a licensed regulated regime. Most people think within a couple of years or so. But then again this is subject to the vagaries of the U.S. political process. There is as you as know in the United States a general acceptance of poker as very different from other hard core gambling products and other matters. Poker is on TV nearly every night on channels ranging from the Travel channel to Discovery, Leisure, to National Geographic, as well as ESPN and some of the traditional ones. So it is certainly a wide spread popular phenomenon. One I think that enjoys the kind of popular support which will ultimately see this as a again a legalized regulated operating environment.

Google Key Word(s) News Watch

Each of the key words and phrases below takes you to the corresponding Google News page, sorted by date. There is a brief explanation opposite each news search item to describe why the corresponding news is potentially of interest. (Note: Some terms currently do not have any news.)

The China market has large growth potential and may become the trend setter for online gaming. How will China regulate? Will some of the billion dollar plus online gaming companies in China move into the world market? More on China and online gaming here. Will China allow Mahjong play for real money is considered here.

ERTS introduced online gaming in Korea in Q1 2007 and achieved 100K peak hour users in the first 30 days and 3.5M unique users in the first 60 days. In 2007, ERTS took a 15% equity stake in NCTY (The9) and is introducing its EA Sports in the China market.

Holland Casino is a gambling monopoly in Holland and Cryptologic expects (May 2007 view) to launch an online site in September 2007. Will Holland Casino get an online license? Will the EU get involved if Holland Casino has an exclusive license?

Gilbraltar and Malta are expected to be approved locations for sites wanting to deliver services into the UK Market. For a list of Malta gaming license holders, please see the remote gaming section at the Web site at www.lga.org.mt.

Sportsbetting is likely the largest online gaming market sector. Many of the online poker sites are adding sports betting to their poker/casino operations. For example, PartyGaming has PartyBets and GameBookers.com. 888.com has just introduced a sport betting feature.

Perfect World Co Ltd, a Beijing based online gaming company, started trading on the Nasdaq on July 26, 2007 under the symbol PWRD. Perfect World Co Ltd offers multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as Perfect World, Legend of Martial Arts, Perfect World II, and Zhu Xian.
• more on Perfect World, the game, from wikipedia here.

Shanda Interactive Entertainment (SNDA), located in Shanghai, China, is an online entertainment and media company offering online games and interactive entertainment, including MMORPGs for the China market.

99Bill Corporation is an Internet company focusing on providing online payment platform services to facilitate online transactions in China. Perfect World (PWRD) is using 99Bill to provide bonuses to game players (August 2007).